Get er done Morey! This team desperately needs some nice free agent signings to give the fanbase a slight bit of hope for improvement.
I absolutely love Choo. He can do everything and would give us a formidable outfield (Fowler, Choo, Springer). He is also the 2nd coming of Biggio in terms of getting hit (26 times last year). He also finished with 112 walks. I am sure he has 5 years of good baseball left.
Well even if we're overpaying it'll be years before the Springers, Appels, Correas, etc. start coming into big money contracts so why not. Add Choo and Tanaka and hopefully Singleton joins Springer in the majors this year. Next year add one more big FA and Appel, Folty, DDJ, maybe Correa could be ready to go. Not to mention Nitro, Feliz, Rodon, LMJ at some point. Very exciting time to be an Astros fan!
Astros may sneak in on Choo THE perception has been the Shin-Soo Choo sweepstakes will come down to Seattle vs. Texas, with the Rangers the front-runners. But three executives said watch out for the Astros. Houston is a Moneyball organization, always looking for value play. Thus, if the Astros sense much of the market has fallen away for Choo, perhaps they could step into that breach and offer, say, a six-year, $120 million deal if no one is willing to go to the seven-year, $140-ish million Choo is seeking. Keep in mind, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow values on-base percentage pretty much above all else, and Choo’s .392 on-base percentage over the last six seasons is best among outfielders since 2008 (minimum 1,500 plate appearances). Houston needs to win its fan base back after three straight seasons of at least 106 losses, which — among other items — led to record-low local TV ratings last year. And the Astros could speed up their rebuild by teaming Choo and the recently obtained Dexter Fowler in the outfield to make the transition to the majors a bit easier for top prospect, outfielder George Springer.
2015 seems to be the year where Astros are targeting to really make the playoffs specislly if Astros sign Shoo then you add a mega talent like Rodon on June. Let's be real Rodon won't be in the minors for long maybe a year at most...
The analysis on that article is flawed. It's attempting to use age-related production projections to translate to WAR, ignoring that WAR is based on projection above a baseline. Based on that analysis, Choo would never become a sub-replacement level player, even into his 40s, when we know that's clearly false. There's a real possibility that Choo, who's only played 4 full MLB seasons, isn't even starting for the Astros by the time he's 37, either due to injury or reduced effectiveness. I wouldn't count on projecting production for any over-35 year old guy, which is why teams shy from giving long term contracts late into a guy's 30s.
Talk about giving out albatross contacts to a guy that is statistcally by age, entering the down ward slope of his career. Didn't the old regime ownership milk the Carlos contract as their excuse for not competing financially. Carlos was making 20 million a year whe he would have been making slightly more than league minimum on the open market. I can see it now, excuses for not signing their own talented developed prospects because they have such a high payroll. And by the last 3 years of his contract i doubt Shoo will be worth more than 5 million a year on the open market. Why gambal he will defy the odds and be an all star quality past 35 years old? Especially when there is no discount for more years. Plus he wont be the guy to get them over the hump to being cometitive. To me all of this sounds like spending just to get people off their back. Which would be fine if the lenght of the contract was at most 5 years. But 7 or 8 years being discussed is a bad deal. I think a lot of what we are hearing is Boras inflating the market. I recall that he had the Texas Rangers bidding against themselves in the Alex Rodriguez signing. Astros are in no position to have to over spend. The prospects coming up are intriguing and there are a lot of them. By the sheer amount of prospects some will become all stars. And the last thing we need is signing a road block for the prospects.
No. We competed financially under the previous regime. It didn't stop us from re-signing our players.
If Crane is willing to spend good, it's time to start thinking about actually winning MLB games. The thing about the Astros payroll, all of our young players are gonna be under team control for years. Castro will be a FA in 2017 Altuve in 2018 and Dominguez in 2019, everyone else is 2020 and beyond. We are in no danger of losing anybody. If we sign Choo to a 6 year deal, his contract will come off when it's time to start locking guys up. Our payroll even with him is gonna be very low for the next few years. Choo is 31, and has a skill set that would appear to age well. I think we can count on at least 4 more prime years, maybe you have to deal with a bad year or two at the end. But if he helps us contend or even win it all from 2015-2018, it will be worth it.
Let's see... .285 35 2B 20 HR 80 RBI 20 steals 100 walks 130 strikeouts Plus defense in RF How much is that worth? Ellsbury got 7 years $153M and is 1 year younger than Choo. Ellsbury has been played 3 full seasons in the past 5 years as opposed to 4/5 for Choo. Choo may very well get close to those numbers. Werth got 7 years $126M and was about the same age at Choo when he signed his contract. I say Choo gets something around 6 years $115M. Market seems to have softened a little bit and Choo has never put up a huge season, he's just been very steady with his .285/20/80 type seasons.
Choo is the Worth of this org. Huge signing for an org that will have a tough time attracting big FA's, so we can't assume they'll come with prospects in place. But get him here in advance, and it'll be big. Please make it happen!
Shin-Soo Choo rejected a seven-year, $140 million contract offer from the Yankees, reports Yahoo! Sports' Jeff Passan. Choo's agent Scott Boras countered that he was looking for "Ellsbury money," according to the report. New York signed Jacoby Ellsbury to a seven-year, $148 million contract earlier this month. Passan reports that the Astros are one team with an offer on the table to Choo. If Houston can pull off the stealthy signing, they could field an impressive outfield of Dexter Fowler, George Springer and Choo in 2014. Choo, 31, hit .285/.423/.462 with 21 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 154 games this past season for the Reds. Seems a little strange that he could have rejected that, yet is still considering whatever the Stros offered.
yeah. We can only hope he has a hard stop of, say, 150 mil. And isn't taking a "good team discount" from that point. The sad part is, he could easy be Beltran-ing us if that's the case. "I have 150 from the Astros, so give me that. Period." And he holds out until he gets it
I refuse to believe that we are offering him $20MM/year (or more) for 7 years. That's pure insanity for any player, as A-rod, Pujols, and the like have showed us.
Agreed. Boras is just using us as leverage, knowing that we have a low payroll and are spending a little this offseason as compared to years past. I could see offering a high annual salary, but with a max of 3 years.
Maybe he's considering the state tax savings... I'm guessing he wants to be the highest paid player this offseason and a full no-trade. I think he gets it... from the Rangers.
Olney: • Shin-Soo Choo is still the biggest name on the free-agent market, and still looking for a deal of more than $100 million. But there are some evaluators leery of Choo's splits against lefties and righties -- a staggering difference of about 400 points of OPS -- and one official noted the one-year spike in Choo's 2013 performance. "This is a player who was traded for Didi Gregorius a year ago," said the official.
you're right. Though I don't see the advantage in a 3 year deal. I think we'd have to get at least 4 given the path of this team. So maybe 4/100 or something in that range? (which would again just be Beltran-ed into a 25/yr bigger contract from someone else)
I just meant "there are other teams (like the Astros) that are spending and can offer more than that offer, Mr. Cashman". Not that we necessarily are, or will offer more than their offer. This is Boras, after all.
